The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earth's only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System.
The moon's surface is covered with dead volcanoes, impact craters, and lava flows, some visible to the unaided stargazer.
A jarring game of planetary billiards in the early years of the solar system created the Man in the Moon, astrophysicists believe.
Rocks picked up by the Apollo astronauts suggest that the basins that seem to form the Moon's "face" resulted from a massive flurry of impacts by space rocks some 4 billion years ago.